Big Ten Expansion - Revisited

A while ago, the Big Ten announced that they were going to be looking into finding an expansion team down the road so that they could add a conference title game..

The big front runner on that list was to steal Missouri from the Big 12, however there have been some new allegations as of today:

LJWorld.com said:

A source with ties to the Big Ten said that while most peopleÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s attention has been trained on the conference stealing Missouri, the Big Ten has engaged in ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œpreliminary exchangesÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â with a much bigger fish from the Big 12.

ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œThere have been preliminary exchanges between the Big Ten and Texas,ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â the source told the Journal-World on Wednesday. ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œPeople will deny that, but itÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s accurate.ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â

Missouri and Pittsburgh have been the most talked-about candidates to fill the 12th spot, which would enable the conference to have the postseason football conference title game it lacks. In December of 2009, the Big Ten issued a statement that the timetable for expansion was in the 12-to-18-month range.

Travel costs, in terms of money and fatigue, make Texas seem on the surface like a stretch, but TV revenue would more than make up for the fatigue factor.

Getting TV sets in the massive state of Texas tuned to the Big Ten Network would qualify as a home run for the Big Ten.

Texas already receives the most TV money in the Big 12 because of its frequent national network appearances, but the source said Texas still thinks it can get a better deal for itself and is considering forming its own state-wide TV network.

Geographic concerns donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t carry the weight they once did because TV revenues have grown so much, and this wouldnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t be the first time Texas has considered such an odd geographic match. Before joining the Big Eight with three other schools from Texas, the Longhorns looked into joining the Pac-10.

Veteran basketball columnist Mike DeCourcey, writing for The Sporting News on Dec. 16, wondered why nobody other than him was talking about Texas as the most logical school for Big Ten expansion.

ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œNo one seems to recognize the genius of this suggestion, which may be evidence of its genius,ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â DeCourcey wrote. ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œEveryone else seems to be thinking small and boring, but as I suggested not long after the Big Ten Network was conceived, Texas is the one program that could dramatically expand the money-making power of the league's cable operation.ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â

Much later than DeCourcey offered the suggestion, the two parties finally have inched toward each other with ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œpreliminary exchanges.ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â

this would be a great move if it went through. the Big 10 already has markets in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. Adding Texas would give the Big 10 markets in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston. Not to mention since Michigan's taking a leave of absence from being a Big 10 heavyweight it would give us a third heavyweight. I support the move 100%. The only question is if Texas joins the Big 10, does Texas become a slow Big 10 team?

If the big 10 goes after Texas they will be adding 3 teams to the conference not just one. Texas will not go without Texas A&M they are going to be a package deal. So then it will come down to Mizzu, Pitt or Syracuse as possibly the 3rd team. TCU has no shot at all. They wont be adding medocrity to the conference. This wont be just a football thing either.

Yes it would make them a 14 team league. That is the only chance the will have of getting texas. Texas will NOT come to the big 10 without A&M. So if the big ten wants Texas as bad as they do then they have no choice but to go to 14 teams

The last time Texas had offers to go to move conferences that was part of the situation they stated. It was either both of us or none. Texas and Texas A&M won't give up their rivalry and there is no doubt that politics are going to take and get involved in this situation like it did before. I also heard someone from Big 10 network talking about this earlier saying that the only chance of getting texas is to get both. Plus it was also reported that the big 10 could look to expand to 14 teams which is why the Texas makes since now. When they were only looking into just one and texas comes up in the conversation and the big ten has talked to texas. Now all of a sudden they maybe adding 3 teams also heads toward the fact texas told the big ten both or neither

The intertwined issues of Texas state politics and what happens to Texas A&M were cited as the single greatest obstacles for Texas in joining the Big Ten. It would be interesting if what Longhorn Lawyer noted in his comment on my initial index post about making sure that “Texas A&M is taken” care of would mean that, perhaps, the Aggies could head over to the Pac-10 along with that conference’s long-time rumored target of Colorado and turn the West Coast league into its own extremely strong 12-school offering. I’ll have to amend my 99.99999% probability figure that the Big Ten would not go past 12 schools down to about 95% to allow for the possibility that even if the conference’s revenue needs to be split among 14 schools, getting Texas might be so valuable that if it means that the conference also needs to take A&M (which is a pretty valuable school in and of itself), then it’s more than worth it (as Trashtalk Superstar noted in his own comment). Add on, say, Syracuse to the Big Ten to kick it up to 14 schools and now you’ve added both the states of Texas and New York to the Big Ten footprint and pretty much as close to a national conference as you can get. I still think that the Big Ten would much prefer simply adding Texas to keep the conference tight-knit at 12 schools (since most of the gains in that 14-team conference could be achieved by adding only Texas only), so that’s really only a very last resort.